Ever since I started this blog, I have been working on ways to better communicate to you, our customers, about the different products we grow, new products and the status of our crops. Years ago we did every thing by mail and phone. One phone line became two then four then eight. Then along came that miracle of modern technology, the fax machine, with fuzzy copies and those streaks of lines when the paper got stuck mid-fax.
Years later we have an arsenal of technology available to bombard you with every format of data known to man. So I would like to take a few minutes to go over all the different options available to you to receive information and availability updates from us. Click on the link below to see all the different communication options available.
- Mail – several times a year we still mail out packets usually containing pricing information along with item lists and any other information such as new product flyers and surveys. It is important for us to have a current address.
- Phone – as always, we have real live people available to take your calls and answer your questions. We are open five days a week from 8-4. In the spring we are pretty much here all the time. Our toll free number is 800.334.5770.
- Voice mail – if we aren’t here, leave us a message and we’ll call you back as soon as we can.
- Fax – we send out weekly availabilities when we have product ready. Again it is important to let us know if you wish to receive this fax and to give us your fax number. Once you have received the availability you can use it as an order form to place your order and fax it back to us at 479.471.7051.
- Email – if you are tired of all the faxes and have access to a computer we can email the weekly availability to you. The availability comes to you in a PDF format which requires Acrobat Reader (free download) to open. The pdf file is a read only file which means that you will be able to view it and print it but not able to make changes to the file. Most people print the pdf out, mark their order on the print outs and fax it back.
- Blog – we also post the weekly availability here on the blog along with additional availability updates that get posted during the week especially during heavy ship weeks. The blog is the best source of up-to-date availability and information. Also posted on the blog are pictures and videos of current and future crops along with links to other web sites with useful information.
- Blog Updates – in the upper left hand corner of the blog page are two links: Updates by Email and Updates by RSS. You can click on the links here or in the upper left to subscribe to this blog and be notified every time a new blog post is added. The Updates by email will send you an email when a new update is posted to the blog. The Updates by RSS will add the blog to a RSS Reader. You will need to have a reader set up before hand. I use Google Reader for my RSS subscriptions but here are about a dozen or so available. Basically what the Reader does is go out and collect all the most recent articles for whichever blogs and web sites you have subscribed to and collates them in one page for easy browsing. Once you have a reader set up and have subscribed to this blog, whenever you open your reader, the reader will notify you of any updates.
- Twitter – Twitter is a micro-blog that limits articles to 140 characters or less. Our Twitter account, parksbrothers, is set up to add the Twitter posts to the blog automatically. These are the short posts that you see below as well as what you see in the “What I’m Doing” box on the left. The cool thing about Twitter is that you can set up your account to forward certain information to your cell phone. So if you want to receive up dates on your cell phone, you can create an account on Twitter, find us (parksbrothers) on Twitter and follow us, set up your account to use a mobile device and set the device up dates to “on” for parksbrothers. You can always go back later and turn it off if the auto updates bug you.
So there are some of the ways that we can communicate with you. If you want to get in touch with the geek in you but have some problems setting some of these options up, you can leave a comment here or send us a message on the contact page. I’ll get back with you as soon as possible.